Former Vice President and African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has raised concerns over alleged irregularities in the 2026 Appropriation Act, questioning the reported ₦1.08 trillion allocation to the Federal Cooperative College, Oji River, Enugu State.
Atiku’s concerns follow an independent analysis of the 2026 budget by civic technology platform Tracka, which reportedly revealed that the college was assigned 2,791 capital projects spread across Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
In a statement issued Tuesday in Abuja by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku described the findings as troubling and indicative of deeper transparency and accountability issues in the implementation of the national budget under the President Bola Tinubu administration.
He commended Tracka for what he called exposing “a major distortion” in the budget framework, arguing that the reported allocation contradicts government claims of fiscal prudence.
According to Atiku, it is difficult to justify assigning thousands of nationwide capital projects to an institution primarily established for cooperative education.
The projects, he noted, reportedly include roads, drainage systems, solar streetlights, markets, football pitches, dialysis centres, ambulances, water schemes, recycling plants and empowerment programmes—functions that appear to fall outside the college’s statutory mandate.
Atiku questioned the legal and administrative basis for the arrangement, asking: “Who authorised the college to serve as an implementing agency for such a vast number of projects? Who nominated and approved these projects, and which institutions are responsible for monitoring and accountability?”
He argued that the development undermines the administration’s repeated assurances of fiscal discipline, particularly at a time when Nigerians are grappling with higher taxes, the removal of fuel subsidies and rising public debt.
“A government that says there is no money, removes fuel subsidy, raises taxes, accumulates unprecedented debt and demands endless sacrifices from Nigerians cannot simultaneously operate a budget that appears designed to hide public spending behind institutions with neither the statutory mandate nor the institutional capacity to execute projects of this magnitude,” Atiku said.
The former vice president maintained that if the reported figures are accurate, the allocation raises fundamental questions about accountability in public financial management and warrants urgent public scrutiny.
The Federal Government has yet to respond to the claims at the time of filing this report.
